Motives behind denial of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda

To many people the images from Rwanda in 1994 are still fresh in their memory; bloated bodies floating in the many rivers; dead bodies littered on every corner and on the roadside; mutilated survivors barely living and emaciated survivors from crevices and pit latrines. On the other hand a sea of refugees in the sprawling camps in north and south Kivu provinces of Zaire (DR Congo) under the control of the armed former government army; many of them training recruits and receiving arms ‘for the mother of all wars’. It was said and recorded by observers, witnesses, the survivors and the killers that the effort had been to “wipe out the enemies of the country; the ‘snakes, cockroaches’ (dehumanizing insults used to refer to the Tutsi”. According to Prof. Alexandre Kimenyi, the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, “... was the only genocide that was broadcast live in your home”; people therefore who deny it need to be examined. There are growing numbers of people, who deny there was ever a plan by the government of the day to kill people of one ethnicity, as a way of reaching their political and economic goals. Who are the people and what do they stand to benefit? Are these people strangers to the history of Rwanda? Why do people deny there was genocide in Rwanda? There are many individuals and groups that deny there was genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and for different reasons. There are former ideologues and senior officials of the genocidal regime, who believe in what the government they served, did, and are bent on defending its record while shifting blame for what happened to the people who overthrew the genocidal regime. One of such people is the former member of the executive committee of the ruling and only political party in the country in Rwanda (MRND) and also the chief propagandist and head of the National Bureau of Information (ORINFOR) and currently the head of the so-called “northern Kiga-Hutu” faction of the remnants of the genocidal army, the armed group FDLR that is wreaking havoc on the Congolese civilians in the Congo ‘under the noses of MONUC’ Dr. Jean Marie Vianney Higiro a staffer in the Department of Communications in Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts. Higiro, Felicien Kanyamibwa and Celestin Muhindura have used their communication skills and resources, to misinform and twist the truth to blur their role in preparation of the genocide and even deny that it ever happened for example according to Higiro; “In Nyarubuye, the Interahamwe killed Tutsi at a parish in a building used for religious education where Tutsis had sought shelter… Then RPF soldiers killed civilians in and around Nyarubuye and brought the bodies to the church. After its victory and to show the world what had happened in Rwanda, the RPF dug up bodies and placed them on stilts outside of churches. But all the people killed by the RPF were blamed on Hutus.” Another group of people who deny the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, are people who were involved in preparation and watched or participated in it. Such people are in psychological denial that extends to their speech and writings. According to Gregory H. Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch; “Denial is the eighth stage that always follows genocide... The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims.” Indeed many deny the genocide because they find it hard to believe what they or their family members did. Ends